Details

Object type

painting; portrait

Title

Jean Macaulay Stevenson

Artist/Maker

Stansmore Richmond Leslie Dean artist

Culture/School

Glasgow Girls

Place Associated

Scotland, Glasgow (place associated)

Date

circa 1902

Materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

framed: 723 mm x 621 mm x 73 mm; unframed: 533 mm x 432 mm

Description

Glasgow Girl artist Stansmore Richmond Leslie Dean (1866–1944), known to her friends as ‘Stannie/Stanny’, painted sensitive portraits, figure studies and tonal landscapes. She was the daughter of an Aberdeen master engraver, co-founder of the printing firm Gilmour & Dean – the youngest of six children. She studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1883 to 1889, where she became the first woman to win the Haldane Travelling Scholarship in 1890, which enabled her to study in Paris at the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi. On her return to Glasgow she took a studio at 180 West Regent Street, but spent the summer months in the south of France, Brittany and Holland.

In 1902 Dean married Glasgow Boy Robert Macaulay Stevenson (1854–1952). His first wife Jean Shields of Irvine had died in childbirth several years earlier. Dean’s life changed dramatically as she became step-mother to his daughter Jean. This painting was possibly that exhibited as Miss Stevenson at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1902 (no. 60). Painted in the year of Dean’s marriage to her father, this portrait perhaps suggests some initial ambivalence to this new family member. The influence of American artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) can be seen in its concern for subtle colour harmonies and pictorial balance. In 1898 and 1901 Dean exhibited with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers of which Whistler was President. She also exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts from 1894 and at the Paris Salon. In 1905 she painted a portrait of Scottish writer Neil Munro which was acquired by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the first painting purchased by them from a living artist. She was a member of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists where she was convenor of the decoration committee in 1908 to supervise alterations to the headquarters at 5 Blythswood Square but resigned when Charles Rennie Mackintosh was not given the commission.

Jean grew up in the family home, Robinsfield, by Bardowie Loch in Milngavie but in 1910 until 1926 lived in Montreuil-sur-Mer in northern France with her father and step-mother. During World War I their home became a refuge for Scottish war wounded. Jean went on to become a painter and ceramicist, studying at Glasgow School of Art 1926-31. Like her step-mother she became a member of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists from 1930 and was appointed secretary in 1953, a post she retained until 1959. She gifted this portrait to Glasgow Museums, along with Dean’s Portrait of a Lady, in 1983.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted, 1983

ID Number

3390

Location

Kelvingrove Picture Promenade